Walls of buildings are often ventilated by vents that allow exchange of external and internal air. A disadvantage of such conventional vents is that the external noise is transmitted through the exterior to the interior via the vents. To address this problem, a ventilation device has been proposed that attenuates the noise transmission by the use of an array of quarter wave resonators which are disposed adjacent an aperture or ventilation opening. Such a device is the subject of international application WO 00/29684. The ventilation device disclosed in this application incorporate an array of quarter wave attenuator tubes that are tuned to a resonant frequency. The device functions by dispersing or scattering soundwaves rather than by absorbing them. To extend the acoustic wavelength spectrum that is attenuated, the array comprises tubes of different widths and length.